BOSTON— We’re heading into the fourth game of Syracuse’s NCAA Tournament run, on Saturday in the Elite Eight against second-seeded Ohio State, which means coach Jim Boeheim has faced the usual length pregame and postgame media scrum, oh, about seven times now.

Boeheim is, quite obviously, a little annoyed with repeated questions about his team’s nonstop employment of the zone defense, the hallmark of Boeheim’s coaching style. Even when no one around is actually criticizing the zone, it’s as though past slights — suggestions that he switch to man-to-man at certain times of games or against certain players or teams — have lodged in his craw and he’s not letting them go.

Touch Boeheim’s zone nerve, and he’s going to get feisty.

“These guys know what we do, what we’re about,” Boeheim said Friday with his sarcastic smile. “They work hard at it. It’s always funny to me, I never hear anybody yelling at (Duke coach) Mike Krzyzewski to go back and play zone. Why is that? He’s such a good coach, you don’t question him? Is that what that is? Really. Somebody shook their head down there; that means I’m not a good coach, so you can question me. It’s all bull(stuff).”

But for Boeheim and Syracuse, there’s no doubting the results. The top-seeded Orange rank fifth in the nation in steals — 9.2 per game — and though Wisconsin was able to take care of the ball in the Sweet 16 (six turnovers), Syracuse forced 26 turnovers in its first two tournament games.

And Boeheim enumerated other advantages of playing zone, one of which was evident in the final seconds of Thursday’s one-point win over the Badgers — as star guard Jordan Taylor sought to drive to the basket for a game-winner, he couldn’t get through and wound up taking an awkward, off-balance shot from well behind the 3-point line. He missed.

“There are a few advantages to playing zone,” Boeheim explained. “I mean, we play zone because we think it’s our best defense overall to win the game. But at the end of the games, you’ll see at least half the time in a close game, there’s a foul called on a drive to the basket, because that’s what people do. And they’ll try to get to the basket, and there’ll be a foul because you’re playing man-to-man.

"Very seldom do we foul at the end of games; very seldom is someone going to go to the line to beat us. That almost never happens.”

Oh, but there is more from the Boeheim zone gospel, including an example from the Kansas State game, Syracuse’s second tournament win. Boeheim was able to play leading scorer Kris Joseph in the first half, even after Joseph had been whistled for his second foul.

“A guy gets two fouls in the first half, I don’t take him out,” Boeheim said. “We can protect him. So I keep my best offensive players in the game the whole half.”

So if you’re hoping that, for some reason, Boeheim is going to consider playing some man defense against Ohio State’s high-scoring trio of Jared Sullinger, Deshaun Thomas and William Buford, well, do yourself a favor: Don’t even ask him about it.